Allegation of research misconduct

Research misconduct include fabrication, falsification, citation manipulation, and plagiarism in the development, execution, or evaluation of research, the authorship of articles, or the reporting of research findings. Editors are obligated to maintain the truth and integrity of the scientific record when authors are found to have committed substantial misconduct related to research or other publications in scientific journals.

Grievances and Appeals

JPBCR has a specified procedure for addressing concerns regarding the publication, its editorial staff, editorial board, or publisher. The grievances will be articulated to the designated individual about the complaint case. The complaints encompass all aspects related to the journal's business operation, including the editorial process, citation manipulation, biased editors/reviewers, and peer-review manipulation. The processing of the complaint cases shall follow COPE guidelines.

Ethical lapse

To adhere to ethical standards for research involving human and animal subjects, the author must clearly specify any drugs, individuals, animals, methodologies, or equipment that include inherent risks associated with their use in the publication. The association or legal organization must get legal and ethical clearance from the writers upon request.

 Authors must clearly indicate if the research will utilize safe storage for any private data or information, if applicable.

Competing Interests

All stakeholders (authors, reviewers, editors, and journal managers) of the Journal of Pharmaceutical, Biomedical, and Chemistry Research (JPBCR) are required to disclose any possible conflicts of interest. This is a crucial fundamental component of a transparent and impartial documentation of scientific endeavors. These disclosures provide an impartial evaluation of submissions while enabling readers to form their own conclusions about the text and possible biases. JPBCR does not reject submissions only because the authors declare a conflicting interest; however, the published article will disclose such interests.

A competing interest arises when professional judgment about a core interest may be swayed by a secondary interest. Perceptions of conflict of interest have equal significance to real conflicts of interest. JPBCR asserts that recognizing and transparently disclosing conflicting interests is not inherently immoral.

Authors

An external interest can affect or potentially affect professional judgments about the thorough and impartial presentation of research, leading to a conflict of interest. Consequently, we mandate that our authors reveal any potential conflicting interests.

Conflicts of interest can emerge with financial issues. Conflicts of interest may also be non-financial, professional, or personal, and they can pertain to either institutions or people. Authors must expressly indicate the absence of conflicting interests in their submitted publications by stating, "The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest."

This sentence should precede the acknowledgments. Authors must disclose any relevant competing interests related to the submitted work in the Comments to Editor section throughout the submission process if potential conflicts of interest exist.  

According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) uniform declaration of competing interests, authors should disclose four types of information:

• Their associations with commercial entities that provided support for the work reported in the submitted manuscript (the time frame for disclosure in this section of the form is the lifespan of the work being reported).
• Their associations with commercial entities that could be viewed as having an interest in the general area of the submitted manuscript (the time frame for disclosure in this section is the 36 months before submission of the manuscript).
• Any similar financial associations involving their spouse or their children under 18 years of age.
• Non-financial associations that may be relevant to the submitted manuscript.

Editors, Reviewers & Journal Manager

A conflict of interest arises when an editor's objectivity or a reviewer's unbiased assessment is jeopardised. These secondary concerns may be financial, personal, or linked to an organisation. Editors and referees must reveal any personal conflicts and, if necessary, recuse themselves from assessing the relevant submission.

In cases where a compelling justification exists (such as in specialised scientific fields) for editors to engage a referee who falls under one or more of these circumstances, the editors should endeavour to obtain an impartial evaluation. They must secure at least one assessment from a completely unbiased reviewer.

All authors are obliged to obtain and fill out the ICMJE COI disclosure form and furnish a copy to the corresponding author. The corresponding author is required to provide a summary of the Competing Interests declaration for all authors in the manuscript, which will be incorporated into the article.

 

Human Rights and Animal Rights

Every researcher must conduct their studies within an appropriate ethical framework. Should there be any doubt that the work was not completed within such a framework, Editors may decline the manuscript and/or reach out to the author(s)' institution or ethics committee. In exceptional cases, if the Editor has grave concerns about the ethics of a study, they may reject the manuscript on ethical grounds, even if an ethics committee has granted approval.

Studies involving human subjects, material, or data must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and receive approval from an appropriate ethics committee. The Declaration of Helsinki can be accessed by clicking here. All manuscripts reporting such research must include a statement detailing this, along with the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where applicable. If a study has been exempted from ethics approval, this should be explained in the manuscript with proper justification. Authors should be prepared to provide additional information and documentation to support this upon request from Editors. Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor deems that the research was not conducted within an appropriate ethical framework. In rare instances, Editors may contact the ethics committee for further clarification.

If a study has not been submitted for ethics committee approval before commencement, retrospective approval is typically not obtainable, and the manuscript may not be considered for peer review. The course of action in such cases is at the discretion of the Editor(s).

When reporting the use of a new procedure or tool in a clinical setting, such as a technical advance or case report, authors must provide a clear justification in the manuscript for why the new approach was considered more suitable than standard clinical practice to address the patient's clinical needs. This justification is not necessary if the new procedure is already approved for clinical use at the authors' institution. For any experimental use of a novel procedure or tool where a clear clinical advantage based on clinical need was not evident before treatment, authors are expected to have obtained ethics committee approval and informed patient consent.

Check updates about Declaration of Helsinki

Informed consent

In every research involving human subjects, informed permission must be acquired from participants (or their parent or guardian for minors under 16), and this need should be explicitly stated in the article.

All manuscripts containing details, images, or videos pertaining to individual participants must secure written informed consent for publication from the participants (or their parent or legal guardian if under 16), and include a statement to this effect in the manuscript. If the participant has passed away, the next of kin must provide approval for publication. Editors will have access to this documentation upon request, and we will handle it with confidentiality. If the paper contains completely unrecognizable photographs and no personal data about individuals, it may not require approval for image publishing. The ultimate determination of the necessity for publication consent rests with the editor.

The paper must include a statement confirming adherence to applicable rules and/or ethical approval, specifying the name of the ethics committee and the reference number when necessary. The article must specify any ethical approval exemptions for the research, including the name of the issuing ethics committee and the rationale behind them. The editor will consider animal welfare concerns and retain the authority to reject a paper, particularly if the research employs techniques that deviate from widely accepted animal research standards.  In exceptional instances, editors may reach out to the ethics committee for more information.

The Editors and Editorial Board shall implement COPE's best practices in cases of suspected misconduct to address the issue and manage the transgression fairly. The Editors will investigate the assertion. Any submitted paper found to include such misconduct will be dismissed. A retraction may be issued and linked to the original publication when a published study is found to include misconduct.

 The initial stage involves verifying the veracity of the claim and determining its alignment with the criteria for research misconduct. During this initial step, it is essential to investigate any potential conflicts of interest that may arise among the individuals accused of misconduct.

The allegations are directed to the corresponding author, who is thereafter required to provide a comprehensive response on behalf of all co-authors regarding any potential scientific misconduct or other substantial research irregularities. Upon receipt and evaluation of the response, it may undergo additional examination and consultation with subject-matter experts, including statisticians. Clarifications, further analyses, or both, published as letters to the editor, sometimes accompanied by a correction notice and a change to the original piece, are sufficient in circumstances when wrongdoing is uncertain.

Institutions must thoroughly and comprehensively investigate allegations of scientific misconduct. The accuracy of the scientific record is ultimately the responsibility of authors, journals, and organizations. The JPBCR will persist in its responsibilities to uphold the validity and integrity of the scientific record by appropriately addressing concerns regarding scientific misconduct and implementing necessary actions based on the assessment of these concerns, including corrections, retractions with replacement, and retractions.